Model instancing? Material assignments?

[Rastar]

It seems that materials applied to one copy? instance? of a model in the viewport are always applied to all copies? instances? of it in the map, which is awkward. I am using some wall + floor meshes (Steve's Sci-Fi interior pack, btw) and I would like to apply different materials to those pieces, depending on where they are used. Yes, I could copy the model, but that shouldn't be neccessary and would be a waste of resources.

[YouGroove]

I can't imagine to make a level and have each time to reassign materials to each duplicated model

What you ask is very specific, hopefully models and their materaisl are instanced ine 3D engines.

 

And indeed like all level designers, you have to make a copy of your model and assign a new material to it, this way you will be also able to duplicate this specific version.

Another way would be that you would create your own level editor with your specific needs with control on duplicated models and material assignment at level loading.

[Rastar]

Well, meshes and maybe materials should be instanced, but their assignments don't have to be unique. If I change the base model and assign materials to it (e.g. in the LE material editor) those changes should apply to all of its children, but if I change a child (in the viewport) that shouldn't propagate to its parent (and thereby all children). I do forfeit the advantages of instancing, if I have to copy the model (with exactly the same geometry) just because I want to assign a different material to it.

[Josh]

Interesting ideas...

[3Dski7059]

I've seen what you're talking about in modelers like Blender, where you can explicitly choose to copy as a reference. Then, as you say, if you change any property of the original object, they all change. Otherwise, a standard copy is just that and changes to the source object would not affect the copy. Its a useful feature in cases you're speaking... You have a room full of pillars and you decide you might want a little different texture... or, better yet, you find you need to adjust the texture placement.... fix the source and the reference copies would be corrected along with it. Beats having to tweak all of them!